Documentality : why it is necessary to leave traces / Maurizio Ferraris ; translated by Richard Davies.

"This book was first published in Italian as Documentalità perché è necessario lasciar tracce"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-370) and index.

Introduction : marriages and years in jail -- Catalog of the world. Samples ; Subjects ; Objects -- Ontology and epistemology. The transcendental fallacy ; Ontological differences ; Theory of experience -- Social objects. Social epistemology ; Realism and textualism ; Objects, acts, and inscriptions -- Ichnology. Registration and imitation ; Writing, archiwriting, thought ; Genesis and structure of inscriptions -- Documentality. Documents ; Works ; The phenomenology of the letter -- Idioms. What does a signature mean? ; Le style c'est l'homme ; Epilogue : eleven theses.

Develops an ontology of social objects on the basis of the claim that registration or inscription--the leaving of a trace to be called up later--is what is most fundamental to these social phenomena.